Officials Criticize Clinton's Pardon of an Ex-Terrorist

By ERIC LIPTON

Published: January 22, 2001

An unusual combination of New York political and law enforcement leaders have condemned former President Bill Clinton's pardon of Susan L. Rosenberg, a one-time member of the Weather Underground terrorist group who was charged in the notorious 1981 Brink's robbery in Rockland County that left a guard and two police officers dead.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican, and United States Senator Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat, were among those who criticized the pardon, as did Bernard B. Kerik, New York City's police commissioner, and David Trois, a Rockland County police union official.

''It sickened me,'' Mr. Kerik said yesterday of the pardon, one of 140 granted Saturday, the final day of Mr. Clinton's tenure.

Ms. Rosenberg served 16 years in jail after she was found with a companion in New Jersey in 1984 unloading 740 pounds of dynamite and weapons, including a submachine gun, from a car. She admitted her role in the New Jersey case, in which she had planned to supply others with explosives for politically motivated bombings.

At the time of her arrest, she was wanted on charges related to the 1981 armed robbery of a Brink's armored car in Nanuet, N.Y., a holdup that was supposed to raise money for the Weather Underground and other radical groups. But Ms. Rosenberg denied any involvement in the Brink's robbery and was never tried on those charges, because Mr. Giuliani, then the United States attorney in Manhattan, indicated that given her 58-year sentence on the New Jersey weapons charges, there was no need to proceed with that case.

She requested a pardon after federal prosecutors in 1999 cited evidence of her role in the Brink's case as a reason she should not be paroled on the New Jersey charges. Because she was never tried or convicted in the Rockland County case, it was unfair to deny her parole, her lawyer, Howard Gutman, said yesterday.

''I am confident that if each of those officials learned the true facts of the case, they would applaud the decision and would be shocked that Susan was incarcerated as long as she was,'' he said, adding that Ms. Rosenberg, who is about 45, was released from federal prison on Saturday and moved to her mother's apartment in Manhattan.

Mr. Giuliani, asked yesterday if he regretted not prosecuting Ms. Rosenberg on the Brink's charges, said he could not recall the details of the case. But even if she was not tried or convicted in the case, Ms. Rosenberg did not deserve to be freed, he said. ''She was convicted of having in her possession 740 pounds of explosives, a submachine gun, weapons,'' the mayor said. ''She admitted she had these weapons to give to someone to use in a bombing, and she had been involved in a significant number of robberies, bank robberies.''

Senator Schumer said that, even 20 years after the Rockland County robbery, the hardship continues for the families of the men killed, so Ms. Rosenberg should not have been pardoned.

David Trois, president of the Rockland County Patrolman's Benevolent Association, said he remained convinced that Ms. Rosenberg played a role in the Brink's robbery and he called the pardon an insult to all police officers.

Police Commissioner Kerik had a personal connection to Ms. Rosenberg's case. As a commander in the Passaic County Sheriff's Department in the mid-1980's, he was part of the security team that accompanied Ms. Rosenberg each day to and from her trial at the federal courthouse in Newark.

Photo: As a commander in the Passaic County Sheriff's Department in the 1980's, Bernard B. Kerik, front, now New York City's police commissioner, was part of the security escort for Susan L. Rosenberg to and from her trial in Newark. Mr. Rosenberg was pardoned Saturday. (N.Y.P.D.)